


whatever prize their brave hearts desire

by Anonymous



Category: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-01 04:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13990962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Alex Vreeke wakes up in the videogame world. It's not Jumanji.Well, not quite yet.





	whatever prize their brave hearts desire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clocketpatch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/gifts).



> Title from Twisted Metal 2: World Tour

One minute, Alex is firing up a videogame in his bedroom, and the next minute, he’s plunging into an endless green void.

At first he panics, because what else do you do when the ground opens up and you fall forever? But then the little voice in his head starts getting bored and he thinks,  _man, Alice in Wonderland never had it this bad_ , and _this never happens in Twisted Metal_ , and halfway through  _I could really use a Coke,_ the ground abruptly meets him. Shoulder first, natch.

“Oof!” says the ground.

Alex jerks, and rolls off something that is very decidedly not the ground.

“Sorry,” he says, automatically. “You okay--” And then his brain catches up with his mouth. Because it’s not immediately clear whether it’s a dude or not, flailing upright. Are they tall or short? Chick or dude? Alex holds a hand out and grabs onto--

It’s like clearing a fog of war, the way he registers the firm grip, a strong, square-fingered hand suddenly coming into view, up a fancy sleeve, to a dude who looks to be about Alex’s age, brown-haired and eyes just a little too green.

“--dude?” Alex lets go a beat too late. “‘Sup?” he says.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” says the other dude, a little wide-eyed. “I am not this ‘Sup’ fellow you seek.”

Alex looks around in disbelief. They’re standing on a circle of grass that keeps growing around them, like the weird greenness is gaining resolution. He tries to remember if he ate anything weird before bed, because there’s no way he’s not tripping face. He’s talking to a dude straight out of that Emma Thompson movie, who’s now looking at Alex like he’s a crazy person and backing away, adjusting his shirt cuffs. _Cuffs_.

“I guess not,” says Alex, and oops, removes his hands from his hair. “Well, I’m Alex. Alex Vreeke.” Be cool. Be cool. He sticks out a fist for a fist bump.

The dude stares at his outstretched fist.

“Or not,” says Alex, “My bad, I guess--”

A hand wraps around his fist before he can withdraw. Still standing an arm’s length away, the dude shakes Alex’s fist, gingerly. “A pleasure,” says the dude, dubiously, “Call me Jesse.”

Alex grins. “Well, Jesse, you got any idea where we are?”

The ground crackles under them. It’s no longer grass sprouting from the vague greenness they’re standing on. Vines snake upwards, and seedling thicken, turning wood before his eyes. Somewhere, a bird squawks.

“Oh,” says Jesse. His eyes widen again, but his mouth quirks upward. “Oh, this must be Jumanji.”

\---

“So, Jumanji,” says Alex, between puffs of air as he tries to keep up. Jesse is three steps ahead, seemingly immune to tree roots. “You’ve been here before?”

“No,” says Jesse, eyes even brighter in the shade, “But I have come a long way to arrive here.”

He scans the horizon. The path they’ve been following snakes through a dense rainforest. If they sped up, Alex thinks they might be able to see it take shape, materializing out of the vague backdrop of green like a movie set.

Maybe after he catches his breath, Alex thinks as he leans against the nearest tree trunk. It’s really hard to think of it as a movie prop, solid and scratchy. For one, the hot dampness seems to cling to everything, like the worst days of summer times ten. For another--

“Aaugh,” says Alex, slapping his neck, “I hate mosquitoes.”

Jesse frowns. “Maybe we should seek shelter.”

“Dude, not an issue,” says Alex. He’s hot, sticky, and now itchy. “Listen, I’m really stoked you found your jungle, but can you drop me off at the nearest exit?”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow. Exit?” says Jesse.

A shadow passes overhead, the echoes of monkeys passing through the trees. “Yeah, like, how did you even get in here? I need to get going.” Alex shivers. It’s starting to get dark. “You know, home, before people start missing me.”

“Hmph, I suppose you they’ll miss,” says Jesse darkly. “And where might home be?”

“Brantford,” says Alex. Jesse’s eyes are so green. “Brantford, New Hampshire.”

The sky clears. “Well, fancy that,” says Jesse, turning away. Even as Alex blinks away the spots from his eyes, Jesse is already moving, even faster than before. “Come along, we’ll find your exit once we reach the Golden City.”

The terrain is already changing under their feet, the perfectly level ground developing hills and ledges.

Alex snorts. “I’ve played this level of Donkey Kong Country.” At Jesse’s look of confusion, he explains, “You know, the game. Donkey loses all his bananas to the bad guys and has to get them all back with the help of his buddy Diddy.”

“Surely we’re too old for this game of make believe,” scoffs Jesse.

“Hey, man, just sharing.” Alex jams his hands in his pockets and kicks at the rocks underfoot. It’s bad enough his dad’s always on his case for playing videogames. Now Jesse has to be a buzzkill too.

The terrain keeps getting rockier, and Alex is entertaining the idea of wrangling up a pet rhino (Rambi would totally smash through the level), when Jesse says, quietly, “So which of us do you suppose would be Donkey, and which would be--” his face screws up for a second “--Diddy?”

“Oh, I’d be Donkey, duh,” says Alex, grinning at the face Jesse makes. “But I guess we can swap.”

It’s a total olive branch, which makes it twice as unfair when Jesse yells, “Last one to the top of that hill is Diddy!” and takes off away from the path in a literal blur.

Alex charges after him, dodging trees and low-hanging branches. His legs scream with exertion as he runs uphill, but there’s no way he’s going to let a little sneak like Jesse win. Birds screech as they scatter out of his path, his heart pounds in his ears, as he dodges around the thick underbrush, just another step, just another--

If it weren’t for the split second he meets Jesse’s startled green eyes, Alex wouldn’t even know he made the top before his foot treads nothing but air.

One step, two step, but his Spitfires are no match for wet leaves and Alex goes falling, for the second time in a day, into the void--

“Grab ahold!” yells Jesse, and Alex’s windmilling arms smack into something. He’s grabbing on before his brain even registers the rope, and Alex smacks into the side of the cliff once, twice, before he stops skidding. His heartbeat roars like the ocean.

“Are you okay?” says Jesse, way further away than Alex wants to think about.

The ropeburn in his palms and bruises on his knee and hip are starting to register. He makes the mistake of looking down, where the rope is still growing into the unfathomable greenness below. “Ow,” says Alex to himself, and the yells, “Super, dawg!”

The climb back up is going to suck.

\---

“Okay, so theory number one: we’re in a videogame. That’s a--” Alex waves a hand, like he’s trying to magic away the confusion on Jesse's face, “Uh, a computer program that simulates--you know what? Why am I explaining--you’re probably an NPC. Are you an NPC?”

Jesse’s brows furrow further. Alex is pretty sure the open hut they’re sitting in wasn’t there before, but he can only tackle one problem at a time. “What’s an NPC?”

“An NPC is a non-player--you know what, rhetorical question. Even if you were an NPC, you’d still respond the same way.” _Alex_ is back to running his hands through his hair. “Anyway, videogames run on rules. We learn the rules, we apply them right, we get out. Easy peasy.” He pauses in his pacing. “How did you get that rope, anyway?”

“This one?” says Jesse, and pulls the rope out of his pocket. It unspools on the ground, way longer than---aaugh, videogame logic. Alex refuses to think more than he has to about it. “It just appeared in my hand.”

“Okay, cool,” says Alex, “So things appear if we think about it hard enough. How about we think really hard about a map?”

Jesse makes a sound in his throat. “What kind of map are we thinking of?”

“Any map, I dunno,” says Alex, picturing the AA maps his dad keeps in the glove compartment, thinks of the tear from that time he unfolded the map of Florida wrong that one time they went on a road trip.

“I think,” says Jesse, thoughtfully, and Alex’s eyes open of their own volition. Jesse’s hands are glowing. “Yes. A map just like fath--”

The wood above Alex’s head explodes in a shower of splinters. His legs are already moving before his ears even register the sound of a bullet being chambered, when his arm is nearly yanked out of its socket.

He looks down. His hand is wrapped around Jesse’s wrist. Jesse’s face is frozen in a rictus of fear, splotchy and grey.

“Run!” he yells, as another shot embeds itself into the frame of hut, and _yanks_.

Somehow, they’re running, all of Alex’s soreness forgotten in a burst of adrenaline, Jesse’s map flapping noisily behind them. Somehow the jungle parts before them.

“Why is he here?” says Jesse, plaintively, as they dodge an angry hippo.

“You know him?” says Alex, ducking at the sound of another shot. Nothing is hit, so he chances a glance backwards. “Whoa, Larson's after you?”

Jesse’s answer is cut short by a crocodile lunging at them. They’re surrounded on three sides by water, and that water’s not looking very friendly right now.

“His name's not Larson,” says Jesse, bumping into Alex. They’re both backing away from the crocodile. “That’s my--”

“Hello, boy,” says the totally-Tomb-Raider-villain  _right behind him_ , just before--

\---

The air whooshes into Alex’s lungs as he bolts upright. Two arms, two legs, no holes in his chest--

Someone gasps next to him, and Alex nearly flails out of the hut before he registers it’s Jesse.

Wait. Hut.

“We gotta get out of here,” says Alex, grabbing at Jesse’s arm. “Come on, before that dude finds us again.”

“Again?” says Jesse, still looking dazed. He does the same pat-down Alex did thirty seconds before: head, chest, legs, arms, all accounted for. “How did we get here?”

“Um,” says Alex, as he marches them in a _completely different direction_ , “Save point, I think. The hut had to be a save point.”

Hallelujah,” says Jesse, and at first Alex thinks his legs have gone out, except Jesse’s _hands fold together in prayer_ , “But if we’ve been saved--”

“Right, ‘save’ might not be the best word choice,” says Alex, still tugging him along, “Maybe reset point. If we returned to the point we were before, so will, uh, your--" but Jesse doesn't seem interested in helping him fill in the blanks, "--dude, and we’d be stuck in the same loop, and I don’t know about you, but I really, _really_ don’t like--”

“The map!” says Jesse, and succeeds in shaking off Alex this time. He pats himself down again, and fishes the map out of his vest pocket. “Let’s see now--”

So you keep items after death in this game. Dope. Alex hovers over Jesse’s shoulder. “Whoa, it’s like Snakes and Ladders,” he says, trying to follow the intertwining trail with his finger. “Where the hell are we even?”

A shot whistles through the air.

"No rest for the wicked," says Alex, tugging at Jesse's arm again, "Let's roll."

\---

He catches up with them again in the Elephants' Grave.

\---

And the Toucan's Folly.

\---

For a change of pace, a roof collapses on them.

\---

In Ruins of the Unknown, Jesse holds a torch while Alex painstakingly uncovers ancient ruins spelled out, for some reason, in modern English. "--peak not his...NA?" reads Alex, "Wait, no. That's gotta be 'speak not his name', Van--"

And the torch is swinging crazily as Jesse shakes his head, but it's too late. "--Pelt," says Alex.

"Yes?" says the hunter--Van Pelt--before everything goes dark.

\---

Alex has his suspicions. 

"Rayman," he says, as they scale the Treacherous Cliffs. For once, he hopes the map has mislabeled the place. "Tomb Raider, Quake--"

"What in the world are you prattling on about?" grits out Jesse, hauling himself up the next handhold.

"Just games I beat last summer," says Alex. He's pretty sure he's forgotten some. There's that one with the...gorillas? Chimp? "Don't worry about it."

"Well, I wouldn't if you hadn't fallen off the, um--"

"That waterfall thingie."

"Yes, of course. What was it called again?"

He hopes it's fatigue, but Alex has a growing suspicion the save points don't save everything.

\---

They make it three levels without running into Van Pelt, and then a wall collapses on them. Progress?

\---

"Hey, I know this level," says Alex, "Aladdin, right? With the throwing-knives guys."

The bazaar is bustling with people, peddling tchotchkes and pungent spices. Alex runs his hand across the woolen rugs, sidesteps the snake charmer, but lingers at a vendor selling warm, doughy flatbreads.

"I suppose we should run across Ali Baba's cave next?" says Jesse, as Alex drools over the food. "Well, go on."

"How much for one of those?" asks Alex, before Jesse can change his mind.

"Have you found it?" says the vendor, paunchy and balding.

"Found what?" says Alex, but beside him, Jesse goes sheet white. "What are we supposed to find?"

The NPC says, "Have you found it?"

"Ugh," says Alex, turning towards the nearest person. There's a girl who has been circling the market continuously. "I bet you have more cryptic clues for us."

She turns and smiles. "He's here."

"Who's--" Alex suddenly realizes he doesn't need confirmation. There's only ever one  _he_ , the one person whose name they can't speak aloud. Between one breath and the next, the cheerful mood of the market turns claustrophobic.

And then someone screams.

"This way," says Alex, tugging at Jesse's arm. He doesn't know where he's going, only that they need to get out of here. He's sick of dying.

Jesse seems to shake out of it. "Sewers." Before Alex can react, Jesse is tugging at the corner of a manhole cover. "He doesn't look everywhere. He doesn't  _think._ "

Alex files away the bitterness in Jesse's voice for another day and jumps down the dank, dark hole after him.

It's exactly as gross as he imagined.

"Are you sure no one's going to rat us out?" says Alex, "Like that time in--"

"Shhhh," hisses Jesse, and they flatten themselves against the wall. Boots stomp across the grill of the manhole, sending shadows across the rectangles of light dappling the brick sewer wall. Except it's not brick, it's wood, braced like the attic of Alex's parents' saltbox house. For some reason, it's even mustier.

"Jesse," hisses Alex, because this isn't the first time it's happened, reality shifting under Jesse's imagination. He shakes Jesse, hunched in on himself. " _Jesse,_ snap out of it."

"I must find it," mutters Jesse, hands blindly patting the floor. There are tears in his eyes. "He'll  _kill me_ if I don't find it."

"Whoa, slow your roll," says Alex, but Jesse just shoves him aside, thrusting his hand under a wardrobe that was definitely not there before. His breath is coming in little, hitching gasps. "Who's going to kill you if you don't find it? Find what?"

"I swear I was just playing with it," says Jesse. He's starting to shrink before Alex's eyes, his face going soft and round. "Father had no right to be so angry," says the first-grader glaring up at him. There's something glowing under the wardrobe.

"What's under the wardrobe?" says Alex.

The kid's face turns shrewd. "None of your business."

"You yoinked something from your dad," says Alex. It was just a guess, but the way Jesse's lip starts trembling confirms it. "What is it?"

"I just wanted to play Jumanji," wails Jesse, and oh, god, are those tears rolling down his cheeks? "It's all Caleb's stupid fault. If he hadn't made me go get a game piece, I wouldn't--I wouldn't--"

Alex finds himself moving closer, despite him, "Hey now, kiddo, it's okay--"

Jesse's head whips up, furious eyes greener than ever. "It's okay? It's  _okay?"_

He pushes, inhumanly strong, and Alex going flying.

There's a crack.

Alex sees the wardrobe start tipping, sees his own arms come out, flinging themselves over Jesse, the pressure of solid wood coming down across his back, the sheer pain--

The sheer pain.

Alex grits his teeth against a scream. He's  _sick_ of dying. 

"It's here," says Jesse, and Alex manages to slit an eye open. Jesse is holding an emerald so green it glows, the exact color of his eyes. "I found it. I  _found it_."

"That's great, but can you--"

Jesse looks at him as if seeing him for the very first time.

"You want it for yourself, don't you?" says Jesse. "You're just like the others."

"Jesse, buddy, home skill--"

"You tricked me," roars Jesse. The green light is unbearable. "Nobody ever follows the _rules_."

Speaking is hard, but Alex gives it one last try. "We're friends."

Silence.

Alex slits open one eye. The wardrobe is gone. The attic is gone. They're floating in a sea of game-over-green. Jesse just looks at him, small and scared. Alex whispers, "We're friends."

Already, the world is starting to fade. A small, cool hand rests on his forehead. A voice (whose?) says, "You have three tries to get home."

\---

Alex jerks awake in the cockpit of a helicopter. The last thing he remembers--no, the last thing he really remembers, before that super crazy dream--is playing a videogame on the last day of summer. He probably just fell asleep and started dreaming about it.

Besides, he knows this mission in Air Cavalry like the back of his hand.


End file.
